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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29887902">Storms and Serpents</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/rincewitch/pseuds/rincewitch'>rincewitch</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Captain of the Storms [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Final Fantasy XIV</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Gen, a thoroughly unpleasant meeting, implied/referenced past trauma, past character deaths mentioned, setting-typical gridanian racism</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 17:00:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,395</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29887902</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/rincewitch/pseuds/rincewitch</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>An officer of the Maelstrom confers with an officer of the Twin Adders regarding a family matter. Distant artillery fire lights up the Ghimlyt Dark gloom, red as Dalamud.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Original Female Character &amp; Original Female Character, Past Original Female Character/Original Male Character</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Captain of the Storms [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1431865</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Storms and Serpents</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The first thing Rinh notices about the sector of trenches manned by the Red Otters 12th battalion is the smell. Visually, there’s not much to differentiate it from the 9th Levy’s trenches— the crates of supplies and materiel being unpacked bear the seal or the Twin Adders, rather than that of the Maelstrom, there are a few fewer artillery pieces and a few more emplacements for magical bombardment, and, of course, the soldiers wear gold rather than red, but by all large it is a warren of tunnels and dugouts very much like the one she’d just left.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>One sniff at the air, however, is enough for someone with a miqo’te’s nose to tell she is among Gridanians. The scents wafting from the scattered cookfires are muted compared to the ones she’d left behind— less meat than was typical in Limsan provisions, and a near total lack of seasoning. The steam rising from the mugs a few of the soldiers are nursing smells of muy-tuy brew, rather than coffee or tea. And the odor that’s unavoidable when hundreds of people are living and doing physically demanding labor in close quarters has a different texture to it. Fewer miqo’te, </span>
  <em>
    <span>much </span>
  </em>
  <span>fewer au ra or viera, more hyur and elezen, and not one single roegadyn.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eventually, she comes to the command tent, a mirror image of the one Sylbfohc presided over. A hyuran corporal standing guard snaps into an Adders salute, arms intertwined, head bowed. She returns it with the Maelstrom’s sailors’ salute, palm turned inward to hide the residue of tar left by rigging, the fact that Rinh had never needed to handle rigging in her life and was in any case wearing gloves notwithstanding.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The exchange was less grudging than she expected from an Adder. On past occasions where she had to liaise with the serpents, their salutes were desultory, like they couldn’t quite believe that a Keeper of the Moon with an accent from the Shroud’s most distant fringes outranked them in the Eorzean Alliance’s joint chain of command.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then again, given the 12th’s commander, this sentry is likely acclimated to showing deference to a Keeper. A Keeper from her native region of the Shroud, even— if her hunch about Commander Ganajai’s identity is correct, anyway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Still, Rinh can’t help but let her eyes drift to the lance slung over the corporal’s shoulder and wonder if he came up from the ranks of the Wood Wailers. Before she can further pursue that line of thought, however, he lifts the tent’s flap, and Rinh steps through.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Commander Koh Ganajai is alone in the tent, poring over a map of the area by lantern light.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rinh salutes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Koh salutes back. “Captain Panipahr,” she says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ma’am.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You wished to see me,” says Koh. It’s a statement, not a question.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, ma’am,” Rinh says, still standing stock-still at attention.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Koh gives her a dubious look. “About a personal matter.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“With your permission, ma’am.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Koh sighs. “At ease, captain. Let’s get this over with.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rinh stands at ease, although none of the tension leaves her shoulders. “Do you… do you have a son named Koh’sae Ganajai?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Koh folds her arms, impassive and stony-faced.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The older of a pair of twins? A bard who—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Koh sighs. “I know who you mean. Yes, I </span>
  <em>
    <span>had</span>
  </em>
  <span> a son by that name. And since you’re asking about him, I suppose you’re </span>
  <em>
    <span>that </span>
  </em>
  <span>Rinh Panipahr.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Er,” says Rinh, “Yes. I suppose he mentioned me, at some point?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Koh says, “When I saw the name on your levy’s roster, I didn’t want to believe it was you. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Panipahr </span>
  </em>
  <span>is one of the old, old names— it’s all over the Shroud, in all different families. And it seems like half the Keeper girls your age are named Rinh.” She steps around the map table and approaches Rinh, closely scrutinizing her. “But it </span>
  <em>
    <span>is</span>
  </em>
  <span> you. Rinh Panipahr. The </span>
  <em>
    <span>poacher.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Excuse me?” Rinh says, whisper-quiet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, I’m sure you didn’t think of yourself that way— Koh’sae certainly didn’t. He put it much more romantically— </span>
  <em>
    <span>her people live free, in the wild woods, </span>
  </em>
  <span>he’d say. But I’m capable of reading between the lines, Captain Panipahr. And even if I wasn’t, I checked Gridania’s records for any trace of this mystery girl my son spoke so highly of. You’d been detained by the Wood Wailers on multiple occasions on suspicion of unsanctioned hunting. Wanted for evading arrest. Assaulting a sworn Gridanian peace officer—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I just </span>
  <em>
    <span>tripped</span>
  </em>
  <span> him,” protests Rinh, “He was going to—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Save it. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Practicing witchcraft offensive to the Elementals.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I was an apprentice midwife. It was </span>
  <em>
    <span>conjury,”</span>
  </em>
  <span> Rinh says, affronted on her Aunt Sizha’s behalf, “It’s not anything different than what they teach at Stillglade Fane!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Outside of the padjals’ supervision, how can you be so sure? Even a slight deviation could potentially bring the Greenwrath down upon you and yours.” Koh shakes her head. “Moving along— theft of provisions. Trading on the black market. Accessory to the </span>
  <em>
    <span>murder</span>
  </em>
  <span> of a Wood Wailer.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rinh is silent, now. Her mother </span>
  <em>
    <span>had</span>
  </em>
  <span> killed a Wailer— a Wailer who was threatening to kill her daughters, a Wailer whose lance left a scar Rinh bears to this day. She badly wants to rise to her mother’s defense, but even someone as fiercely proud and protective of her family as Rinh knows that implicitly admitting to the charges laid at her feet in front of a high-ranking Gridanian military officer would be a mistake.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She decides to try a different tack. “You’re a Keeper of the Moon, too,” she says, “Surely you know to take anything the Wood Wailers say about us with a grain of salt.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Of course I know that!” </span>
  </em>
  <span>thunders Koh, finally provoked to raise her voice, “Do you think I’m not aware of the burden we bear? Do you think I managed to claw my way up to commander of a battalion of Twin Adders without having to face a gauntlet of midlanders and wildwoods ready to dismiss me at the first sign of imperfection? It’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> fair. But it is how it is, and Keepers like </span>
  <em>
    <span>you </span>
  </em>
  <span>make it even harder for the rest of us by confirming </span>
  <em>
    <span>everything</span>
  </em>
  <span> they say about us behind our backs.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, because my family </span>
  <em>
    <span>chose</span>
  </em>
  <span> to live on the margins of society, constantly on the knife’s edge of starvation, because we thought it would be more fun than following a bunch of boring rules.” Rinh still speaks softly, but she’s seething with anger as decades of swallowed bitterness boil over, “We were just doing what we had to to </span>
  <em>
    <span>survive. </span>
  </em>
  <span>The Gridanians wrote laws to outlaw our way of life, and then called us outlaws for— I don’t know— not just lying down and dying.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Koh scowls. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“Completely </span>
  </em>
  <span>unrepentant, on top of everything else. I suppose it’s not enough I lost my son— someone like </span>
  <em>
    <span>you </span>
  </em>
  <span>got him killed.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He— I— I lost him in the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Calamity—”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Only because he was in the middle of nowhere, doting on </span>
  <em>
    <span>you,</span>
  </em>
  <span> instead of getting somewhere safe as Dalamud loomed larger and larger and the seventh legion prepared to invade.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rinh opens her mouth to speak, and closes it again; she’s utterly speechless. She remembers that she still hadn’t gotten to what she came here to say in the first place, though, so she takes a deep breath and tries to regain some vague semblance of composure. “I— I just wanted to say,” she says, “That we— Koh’sae and I— have a son. Rinh’a Panipahr. Ten years old, now. Your— your grandson.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now it’s Koh’s turn to be silenced. She regards Rinh for a few moments, expression unreadable. “Captain,” she says, finally.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ma’am?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you </span>
  <em>
    <span>ever</span>
  </em>
  <span> speak to me about anything not directly related to military operations, I’ll have you sent back to Gridania in chains.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rinh is pretty sure Koh doesn’t actually have the authority to do that. She might outrank Rinh, but she’s not her </span>
  <em>
    <span>direct</span>
  </em>
  <span> superior, so she has no business disciplining a citizen of Limsa Lominsa for violating Gridanian law.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It certainly got the point across about how little the commander wanted to speak to her, though. “Noted, ma’am.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dismissed, captain.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rinh salutes her sailors’ salute.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Koh curtly salutes her back, arms intertwined in honor of a union of wildwood with midlander.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rinh backs out of the tent. She doesn’t meet anyone’s eye until she’s back in the 1-9’s trenches.</span>
</p>
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